


Synchronized

by shreddedpatches



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Incest, M/M, Mental Health Issues, Possessive Behavior
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-21
Updated: 2015-05-21
Packaged: 2018-03-31 13:44:07
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,359
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3980194
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shreddedpatches/pseuds/shreddedpatches
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>We were meant to be the same person; we do not make sense when we are apart.  We call ourselves Jim and Richard, but truly it is Jimandrichard: one word for one entity.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Synchronized

There is no beginning, no end to us as we lie tangled in our sheets, our bodies slick with each other’s sweat and come and blood.  We inhale, exhale on the same breath, our heartbeats synchronized, our fingers twisted together like clockwork.  Together, we are infinite: we stretch out into a forever that belongs to us alone.  We fill every empty hole in each other’s hearts, because nothing could ever matter more than  _us_ , and nothing you could do could ever pry us apart.

We are always holding hands, even when there are miles between us.  A long time ago, he bit off a piece of my flesh and swallowed it so that I would be with him always.  I let him; I asked it of him.  Begged him to do it.  Did the same to him moments after.  We could not separate from each other even if we tried. 

(I _have_ tried.  I failed.)

\---

We are the same.  Sometimes he likes to pretend he is different, but we both know that’s not quite true.  We have the same heart; we think the same thoughts.  I know, because I can feel it when his fingers tremble against mine.  We know each other in a way that can only come after a lifetime of matching each other’s movements.  We do not require words to speak to one another; small smiles, soft looks, gentle brushes of fingertips against skin will suffice.  He may try to tell you—tell  _me_ —he is different, but his eyes cannot lie: he knows he is the same.

\---

Our kisses are fire and powder.  He eats me alive, and sometimes I fear he will consume me whole.  (Sometimes, I wonder if I would really mind if he did.)

\---

My brother is an actor and I love to watch him dance.  He slips on different masks, one after the other. None of them ever fit quite right because he is hollow: nothing is beneath his skin.  Hollow, so I work my way inside him, fill him up—give him what he needs.  You would never understand the way he needs me.

\---

Sometimes I think about dying.  I want to grow old with him—old, and still pressing kisses to his mouth, still holding his hand.  I know we could never be so lucky.  Often I wonder who will be the first to go; I hope it is me.  I wouldn’t last a week if he left me.  I know it.  I am nothing without him holding me up; I wouldn’t  _want_  to be anything without him.  He is my brother and I love him, and sometimes—sometimes that’s the only thing I know for certain.

I asked him about dying, once.  He promised that he would keep me if I ever left him.  I wasn’t exactly sure what he meant, but I imagined him taking my body and laying it to rest in a freezer like so much meat packaged away for a later day.  Unsurprised, I kissed him and he smiled.  He can do what he wants to me when I’m gone, I suppose.

Sometimes I wonder if he’ll be the one to kill me.  At first the thought terrified me, but I’ve grown quite fond of it since then.  I would rather it be him than someone else.  I hope that he uses his hands—that he pushes me against a wall and squeezes my neck until it’s too much and I collapse, that he rips my chest open and holds my heart until it runs out of love for him and gives out.  And I hope that he holds me as everything fades.  Holds me and whispers to me and—if I’m lucky, if I’m deserving—presses his lips against my forehead.  He’s always so impersonal when he kills—or rather, when he orchestrates death, ordering others to carry out the actions themselves, keeping his hands clean.  I pray that if—when—he murders me, it’s out of love.

I don’t expect you to understand.

\---

Other people are whole; we are not.  Indistinguishable from one another, identical down to a molecular level—you could never tell us apart if we did not want you to see a difference.  Alone, we are only half of a person.  Together, we are one.  It’s in the way we move together, in the way our sentences overlap, in the way his fingers fold perfectly into mine.  We were made for each other—to echo each other, to complement each other.  He is nothing without me, and I guess I’m not much without him, either.

We are the same on the outside, and on the inside where it matters, but in some cases, we differ by necessity.  I keep us safe; he keeps us human. 

We both protect each other. 

\---

We have always been like this.  Other children could not hold our interest; they did not want to recite Elizabethan poetry to one another, or build forts out of blankets and stories, or hold hands and stargaze and play like they were astronomers. 

They did not like us very much; we didn’t mind.  We didn’t like them either.  So we turned inwards on ourselves, holding hands as we crawled deeper into our isolation.  Sometimes I wish that someone would find us in here, would see how thoroughly twisted together we are, and understand, and nod, and then leave.  Or stay, maybe, if they wanted.  I don’t know.  It won’t happen either way.

It’s just—it’s so lonely like this, sometimes.  He is all I have, and I can’t tell anyone what he is to me because of the things we do.  He is the only one who understands, and sometimes I wish I had someone else, too, so I could tell this outsider how happy we are.  We are so _happy_ , my brother and I.  Someone needs to _know_.

When that thought creeps in, I remind myself that I am being selfish.  He is all I need.

\---

I have been with many people, but none of them compare to him.  None are as responsive or as willing to surrender, and certainly none are so eager to please.  Others I dispose of moments after I dispose of the condom, but I will keep him around forever.

He has been with others, too—short-lived things that sort of just happened.  I let him.  He’s such a good boy, see: always knows to come back to his daddy.  Nobody else will ever be enough for him.  And I will always be here to welcome him home with open arms.

\---

I love the way he hurts me. 

You don’t understand—you’ve never loved someone the way I love him.  There is this thing inside him, inside us both, and sometimes it surfaces.  When we are lucky, it comes in nightmares, and we hold each other, shaking, and fall asleep again in each other’s arms.  The feeling of my breath on his chest and my arms around his waist is usually enough to chase it off.

Sometimes we fuck it away.  He pushes me up against the bed—or the couch or the balcony railing or the table or the kitchen counter or the seat of the car or the wall of the pool or the carpet on the living room floor—and pulls off just enough of my clothes to gain access to what he needs and thrusts inwards and tugs roughly at my cock until we both find ourselves simultaneously in a state of bliss.  When we come back down, he loses his teeth and his kisses are terms of endearment again.

But sometimes that is not enough.  Sometimes I look in his eyes and I can see the desperation there and I nod my head.  Perhaps my consent doesn’t matter to him when he is like this, but I want him to know that I am hurting too, that he needs to fix us.

He does. 

He is animalistic when he hurts me, his whole being confined to his hands and his teeth and his sad happy killer eyes.  I am sure to anyone else the scene would be shocking, horrifying, and perhaps confusing—a businessman in a posh suit attacking his defenseless sibling like a predator going in for the kill.  All I can ever see are his big eyes, the hurt in them, and I try and say something to him but it comes out as a whimper.

He is beautiful even as he sends me to the ground and bites my neck and tears the flesh on my arm open, as he tries to claw my eyes out.  My brother is a murderer with an unspeakable need to hurt others.  I suppose it is fitting, then, that I, as his counterpart, have an overwhelming desire to be hurt. 

I never resist.  I have no desire to hurt him; I would rather lie still and whimper and let him take what he needs, because it is what I need, too.

 _Richie_ , he says when it is over, gently running his thumb down my face in a tender half-apology.  He says my name like I am a pet, like I belong to him.  I know it is true, so I smile and say his name like a prayer.

\---

The ordinaries will never have what we have.  We are copies of one another, silent testaments to the other’s existence.  We have always been together, inseparable, our connection transcending smiles and sweat and a cock up an arse.

Late in the evening we curl into each other on the living room couch, breathing in and out together.  He wraps himself in a blanket, clutching a well-loved copy of Anderson’s fairy tales in soft hands; I lean into him, letting him support me while I work on my laptop.  When he is too absorbed in his book to notice me, I steal glances of him, drinking in the way he absentmindedly messes with his hair when his mind is elsewhere.

Usually, he is the initiator, breaking the silence with a light peppering of kisses against my neck.  His lips are a question, a provocation.  _Do you love me?  Will you please take me to bed?_  

He does not need words to ask, and I have never found a way to refuse him.  Haven’t ever really wanted to, either. 

We were meant to be the same _person_ ; we do not make sense when we are apart.  The blood that runs through our veins is the same blood.  We call ourselves Jim and Richard, but truly it is Jimandrichard: one word for one entity.  Distance is a necessity at times, but it does not suit us, and we do not make sense until we are as close as possible—until my mouth is on him and my cock is inside him and we are rocking together, until we are tearing at each other in an attempt to break down the physical barriers between us so that we are _one_ again.

Sometimes I think of twins that are lucky enough to be joined at the head or at the hips, who are lucky enough to _share the same body_.  I wish that I could sew his body to mine so that we would never have to be apart.  I have never shared these thoughts with him, but then, I have no need.  He holds his hands against mine and smiles sadly and I know he _knows_. 

\---

We steal secrets from each other’s mouths when we kiss, swallowing them and keeping them safe for each other.  The secret that I stole from him is that he has the ability to love.  I am uncertain whether or not he is even aware of it himself; he likes to pretend that no one can _get_ to him, likes to think that this will keep him safe in the dangerous world he is drowning in.

I know better.  My brother’s ability love is just as deep as his ability to hate and to hurt; he just chooses to lock it away, only ever pulling it out for me.  It saddens me, but I know it is what he needs, so I smile and hold his love in my hands and do what I can to kiss it all better.

The secret that he has stolen from me is that I am fractured.  I try to hide it, the emptiness, the worthlessness, try to swallow it back down, but he knows better, because he is the same.  His kisses are glue, and he picks up the broken pieces on the floor and he puts me together again.  When he is done I feel like I am worth something.  (I feel like he loves me.)

I could never tell you how much I need him.

He tells me I am beautiful.  He traces the scars on my legs and tells me that he loves me just the same.  I know he only loves my face because it is his own, and I know he only loves the scars because he loves that I am broken enough to fix.  But I also know that he is broken in his own way, and I know that he really does love me somewhere deep down in that charred heart of his, so I smile and tell him that I love him, too.  The look he gives me is tender and affectionate and I curl into him because no one else could ever make me this happy.

He is often possessive when he touches me, and sometimes he is desperate and needy, but there is always the unspoken love seeping in through his fingertips.  I cling to that, drink it, and surrender my throat to him. 

When he is done, our fingers thread together into knots and our breathing aligns and if he would ever let me use words like “souls,” I would say that ours spread out and melt into each other’s until they are one.  And even if we are not the same person, never _can_ be, in that moment we know each other so well that we almost are, and that is enough.


End file.
